http://mmajunkie.comChidi Njokuani has benefited from some generous martial-arts career advice at the right times.

Or, in some cases, demands. Take the scene at age 10, when his brother Anthony, 10 years older, grabbed Njokuani after school one day.

“He just kind of forced me into it,” Njokuani told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) with a laugh. “He had been doing muay Thai in Dallas, and I came home from school, and he said, ‘Get ready. You’re coming with me,’ What am I going to say to that?”

He went along, and a dozen years of martial-arts association followed. Mixing muay Thai and MMA into one career, Njokuani will go back to muay Thai on Saturday when he faces Ken Tran in a 170-pound bout at the World Boxing Council-sanctioned “Battle in the Desert 4: Live from the Joint” muay Thai championship event in Las Vegas.

The 22-year-old native Texan, whose parents are from Nigeria and whose brother (a WEC and UFC vet) was born in that country, will join a card that includes main event Chaz Mulkey vs. Simon Chu and co-main event “Coke” Chunhawat vs. Rami Ibrahim while balancing his enjoyment of both MMA and muay Thai.

This time around, muay Thai provided the best opportunity, but Njokuani most recently fought in MMA in August, when he dropped a Ring of Fire bout to Brandon Thatch that stopped a three-fight winning streak. He hopes to get back to MMA soon.

In the meantime, Njokuani is continuing to live in Vegas with his brother – a good roommate, he said – and train there, alternating his preparation. Muay Thai is a little easier on the body, but he probably enjoys MMA more.

He has chosen between interests before, when martial arts beat serious skateboarding for his time and attention. So far, he hasn’t limited his training.

“It’s nice to balance both, but I’d like to do more MMA,” Njokuani said. “I’d like to get with a bigger show, and once you get to a bigger place in MMA, it would be more difficult to do both. So I’m trying to do both while I can.”

Yes, brother

Njokuani said his brother first dragged him to the gym so he could learn to protect himself. It was the first of few serious athletic endeavors for the family.

Njokuani’s parents moved to the U.S. from Nigeria, where his older brother and one of his sisters were born. Anthony Njokuani started muay Thai later in life, when he was about 19, and he wanted to help his brother find an athletic commitment.

“It was hard,” Njokuani said. “I liked to think I was a natural athlete, and I was pretty good at things I tried sports-wise, but my first day there, it was bad. I kept going, and they saw the potential in me and told me never to quit.”

Again, advice followed. He started competing in small muay Thai events by the time he was 11, and he has been taking fights since.

His only distraction from martial arts was skateboarding, which he actually took quite seriously. Some of his friends had sponsors and spent considerable parts of their days at skate parts practicing or competing.

“It’s something we did all day, every day, all summer,” he said. “Eventually I had to choose, and I decided to stick with fighting. It was just what I enjoyed more.”

Balancing act

We now reach a third act of Njokuani’s following of directions from others. His brother pulled him into a gym at age 10, and then the trainers there encouraged him to stick with it.

Then at age 18, he found another martial-arts interest in MMA.

“I was only doing muay Thai, and then one day they needed a partner for someone in a jiu-jitsu class, and I said I would try it,” Njokuani said. “They saw what I was doing and asked, ‘How old are you?’ I said I was 18, and they said, ‘OK, you’re going to try MMA.'”

So he did. He had fought about 15 times as an amateur in muay Thai, and finding out he could get paid for an MMA fight, he signed up. In November 2007, he scored a TKO victory at a Fight Time Productions show, and he went on to form a 5-3 pro MMA record. He is 10-1 in pro muay Thai.

One of the challenges has been toggling between the two sets of training.

“MMA training is like 10 times worse,” Njokuani said with a laugh. “In choosing fights, it’s not that bad. I take the best opportunities that are available. I would rather take MMA fights when I can because I’m trying to make it in there.”

He said he felt like he took a significant step when he scored a third-round knockout of Alan Jouban at Tachi Palace Fights 9 in May, which preceded his first-round loss against Thatch.

Njokuani will take part in the Saturday fight and then look for his next opportunity in either sport. A big part of his own preparation involves his relationship with his brother, which he says continues to be strong.

“We train together a lot now,” he said. “I’m a lot taller than he is, so it’s tough for him to be sparring with me, but we’ll play around and have a good time. It would be too hard to do it seriously. We have that brotherly love.”

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